European yellow carrot 500 years ago

10.05.2016

Its the first cultivated varieties of yellow and purple flowers appeared in Europe only in the sixteenth century. This is the conclusion of genetics of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, studied the vegetable with the help of genetic analysis. First and foremost geneticists have decided to know when in the process of domestication of the orange carrot has accumulated pigment — carotenoids, giving it nutritional properties.

Its the first cultivated varieties of yellow and purple flowers appeared in Europe only in the sixteenth century. This is the conclusion of genetics of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, studied the vegetable with the help of genetic analysis. First and foremost geneticists have decided to know when in the process of domestication of the orange carrot has accumulated pigment — carotenoids, giving it nutritional properties.

It turned out that for the first time a vegetable was cultivated in the middle East and Central Asia. In Europe, the same yellowed carrots first appeared only in the XVI century. Now, armed with a set of “genetic tools” scientists want to study the transferability of the “carrot” of experience of other agricultural crops. The fact that finding the color orange, carrots have become resistant to drought and disease. As explained in the Institute of Bioorganic chemistry, the synthesis of carotenoids in plants is not a new word in genetics. However not the fact that they will take root in other types as successfully as in carrots. In any case, the release of the new vegetable to the market may take more than a dozen years.